However, in the process of hiding gas reserves from India, BD houses and industries are not getting gas,

too. A country has the authority to sell or not to sell to a foreign country. By all information BD is not rich with gas. Even the US geological survey shows it may have a maximum of 32 trillion cft (tcf) of gas on shore. In comparison, the Iranian reerve is more than 900 tcf. Countries of middle-east, Iran, Russia and Turkmenistan are capable to export, and not BD. I hope, India gets gas connection to the Turkmenistan reserve and forgets about BD gas. Only after this we should go for more digging onshore and offshore. Out of 32 tcf onshore gas, we have so far consumed about 6tcf. The remainder remains underground hiding to keep it away from the greedy Indians. We still do not know about the reserves in the BoB, but it must be more than 100 tcf. India is just jealous of our development efforts and uses every means to deprive us of our wealth. All those TATA steel and fertilizer projects were meant for that. These offers are wrapped with sweets and sweet smiles trying to make us believe these as genuine. But, we already know better than that. TATA is a private company and is motivated by profits. But, somehow TATA's proposal to set a steel plant is not really what it says. In reality it is a SMELTING plant for steel. There would be no other sops like bar shop, plate shop, angle shop and absolutely nothing others. So, this smelting shop would use our GAS, smelt the iron ores brought from india at 1600* Centigrade, and ship the unfinished goods to India, where it will be converted into many shapes in the shops. So, TATA steel plant proposal was nothing but a ploy by India Inc. to steal our gas. Same is its proposal to build an urea fertilizer factory. Indian TATA would use our methane gas to produce urrea. But, then this urea would be exported to India and indian farmers use it to raise their agriculture output. This is also another ploy to steal our gas. GoI/TATA Inc. pressure is so much that BD is being forced to hide its gas with a falsified data. But, this is also affecting our own consumption in industries and households. I wish india to get Turkmenistan gas upto Calcutta as soon as possible. We will then happily open our gas fields. Causes of Power Crisis The demand for around 5,500MW of electricity is not met by an avg supply of only 3,800MW. High gas dependence. Many power plants are idle due to shortage of gas supply and poor maintenance. An inefficient transmission and distribution system operated by state owned companies are the main factor behind huge system loss (15-20%). Unprecedented delay in finalizing a coal policy. We have a probable coal reserve of 3.3 billion tones, which is around 5 times higher than our current proven gas reserve in terms of its heating value. A lack of transparency in power generation procurement and tendering in the past. Highly inefficient decision making process Maximizing Growth for Bangladesh: A Private Sector Vision, Ifty Islam, Asian Tiger Capital Partners Short Term Solutions Shutting down of all the government owned urea plants. This the only immediate source of additional gas to be used for power generation. Most of these fertilizer

factories use old fuel inefficient process which already have outlived their effective economic life. Going for long term agreements to import urea right now as international price of urea is low. The availability of urea must be assured but the price should be appropriate; a subsidy is possible but undesirable. At least the subsidy should be linked to the price of rice. More Rental Power Plants need to be installed to overcome the short term power crisis. Reducing system loss in the power sector should be a priority as a reduction of 1% system loss can save around 45 MW of power. The government should implement the merchant power policy immediately The government can set up some small coal fired power plants and can import coal from India on a temporary basis before developing our own coal mines Several large barge mounted power plants can be contracted on short term basis which can supply additional 600 MW by the end of the year. This will ease the power crisis for a few years while other fuel sources are developed and the required power plants constructed. Short Term Solutions Captive power generation by the private sector is around 1800-2000 MW; 20-25% of this capacity remains unutilized which can be added to the national gridline. Provide incentive to the standby captive generators to run their machine without taking power from grid. The improvement of the gas pipelines and installation of compressors to increase pipeline pressure - should be implemented immediately. Daylight energy saving. Changing the office timetable to 8 am - 2 pm can save more electricity for using in the evening peak hours. 350 MW at Dhaka and Chittagong can be saved daily Using energy efficient appliances and immediate removal of taxes on them Importing Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) from gas exporting countries like Indonesia, Qatar to meet urgent need Nation-wide power conservation awareness program. Mid to Long Term Solution Accelerate the exploration for gas. The recoverable proven remaining reserve of gas is will start depleting after 2012. The maritime boundary dispute with India and Myanmar is a major barrier to offshore gas exploration, and should be resolved as soon as possible. Petrobangla and EMRD must do everything possible to support Bapex to make it a self reliant exploration company. Install new urea plants that are more gas efficient. As coal fired power plants come on line in five years the gas can be sold to the urea factories enabling imports of urea to be curtailed. Fast-track the development of Phulbari and other coal deposits and simultaneously build large-scale coal-fired power stations. Gradually remove coal imports (currently about 5 mill MT) and supply ultimately 18 MMT to the power plants [enough for 6000 MWs]. Contract for 3 coal fired power plants each for 1000 MWs in about 4-5 years. When these plants are available gas is switched to new efficient urea plants and peaking plants for the power sector and for direct industrial use. Public private partnership should be highly encouraged. If needed, energy bond or levies should be charged to raise funds. Mid to Long Term Solution Government must encourage expansion of Solar, wind and bio fuel energy generation. Efforts to use solar power on tall buildings, factories, rural areas should be promoted with low cost loans while removing taxes on solar equipment. Full potential of mini micro hydro generation must also be explored. Energy from solid municipal waste in major cities can be possibility also. Nuclear energy is a long term solution with huge cost involvement of billion dollar per 1000 MW plant, but essentially this would become a vital source with highest

durability and low unit cost of production. Many power plants set up in Ashuganj, Ghorashal, Shajibazar have outlived their effective economic life. Further investment in those will be waste of money and efforts. There has been considerable drainage of national resources in maintenance of some plants. These can be replaced with fuel efficient modern plants. A more efficient and faster procurement and tendering process should be adopted for quicker implementation of any project. Liquefied gas import from Qatar likely A deal is likely to be signed with Qatar this month to import liquefied natural gas (LNG) from the gulf country, energy ministry officials said. The two countries have already reached an understanding last month on supply of LNG by ship. As per the understanding, Qatar will supply about 3.5 billion cubic feet natural gas per week in liquid form to meet Bangladesh's demand. A senior official said Bangladesh has requested Qatar through the diplomatic channel for a tentative date of signing the LNG import deal. Now, we're waiting for response from Qatar government of a date for signing the deal for importing LNG. We hope, we'll receive a date soon and a high profile delegation will visit Doha this month to sign an MoU [memorandum of understanding], the official told the news agency. A copy of draft agreement was also sent to the Qatar government after completion of the law ministry's vetting. The gulf country initially proposed the draft agreement during the visit of a Bangladesh delegation. A Bangladesh delegation led by Energy Secretary Mohammad Mesbauddin visited Doha in June and completed initial negotiation with the Qatar government. Bangladesh has been exploring the ways to overcome the nagging energy crisis that badly affected the power and industry sectors. According to the state-owned Power Development Board (PDB), power plants having about 700MW remained idle because of gas shortage. On the other hand, more than 300 new industries could not come into operation for want of power despite installation of machinery. In such a situation, the government moved for the import of LNG to meet its demand. At present, Bangladesh produces about 1,900 million cubic feet of gas per day (MMCFD) against its daily requirement of 2,500 MMCFD. Official sources said initially Bangladesh and Qatar will sign an MoU and later experts of both the countries will determine terms and conditions of the deal. They said the price of LNG will vary from $7-9 per unit (1,000 cubic feet). However, the price of Qatar LNG has not yet been settled. During the visit of the Bangladesh delegation to Doha, both sides discussed other pre-requisites like development of infrastructure for import of the LNG and transport the bulk natural gas to the countryside. According to Petrobangla, Bangladesh would need around 6 to 7 million US dollars to import 500 million cubic feet of LNG per day. The energy ministry officials are now considering some options of LNG infrastructures, which include floating storage and degasification facility, floating barge with LNG storage facility and on-shore store and degasification unit. They said it will take about two years to develop such LNG infrastructure and also five-six years to develop an LNG terminal. Moheshkhali of Chittagong has been identified as the possible site for developing the LNG

infrastructure on long-term and short-term basis. Qatar has expertise in developing such infrastructures. Besides developing the LNG infrastructure, the government is planning to set up the long 90km gas pipeline from Moheshkhali to Chittagong for transportation of gas.To facilitate this, the government has created a LNG Cell in Petrobangla and former chairman of Petrobangla has been appointed as coordinator of the cell.